It's that time of year: Holiday returns, playoff anticipation and a slew of NFL awards that pay homage to the past. Again, the one-man, one-vote system applies. Here goes…

• The Reggie White Award: For outstanding leadership during a crisis, Redskins coach Joe Gibbs and team owner Dan Snyder share this honor for helping their team deal with the murder of their best player, Sean Taylor.

• The Gale Sayers Award: For big-time impact by a rookie, there's no choice but Minnesota's Adrian Peterson. I hear the respect for Joe Thomas, who started at the hot corner that is left tackle for the Cleveland Browns and was nobody's turnstile. But A.P. torched the Chargers for an NFL-record 296 yards, lit up the Bears for 224 and finished second in the NFL with 1,341 rushing yards — as a part-timer.

• The Tom Dempsey Award: For clutch kicking, it's Tennessee's Rob Bironas— also the Titans' most consistent offensive weapon. He set an NFL record with eight treys to beat Houston, had the league's second-longest field goal with a 56-yarder and led the NFL with 35 field goals. And with the playoffs on the line at Indy the other night, he nailed a 54-yarder.

• The Bill Walsh Award: For coaching with a purpose, Bill Belichick. Spygate, flygate. The Patriots are the first team to go undefeated in a 16-game regular season, and on any given week you'll find Belichick engaged — like huddling with the linebackers or talking it up with a player who gaffed. Cleveland's Romeo Crennel, Jacksonville's Jack Del Rio and Green Bay's Mike McCarthy would be good choices, too. But Belichick is not to be denied. He said he was on a "crusade" for good football. What's next, 95 thesis?

• The Kellen Winslow Award: For social consciousness, it's Cleveland receiver Braylon Edwards, who pledged $1 million toward college scholarships for 100 under-privileged inner-city high school students — and set up a support program to facilitate achievement of the college goal. He shined on the field, too, with an 80-catch, 16-TD breakout campaign.

• The Dick "Night Train" Lane Award: For outstanding cornerback play, here's to San Diego's Antonio Cromartie, who led the league with 10 interceptions despite starting the season as a backup. All of the picks came in the last 11 games.

• The Jim Brown Award: For a bad (as in good) dude that plays running back, it's LaDainian Tomlinson, who won his second straight rushing crown with 1,474 yards. This is the first time since 1993 (Emmitt Smith, 1,486) that a rushing champ didn't gain at least 1,500 yards. But L.T. caught 60 passes for 475 yards and threw for another TD, too.

• The Kool Moe Dee How Ya Like Me Now Award: For MBP — Most Ballin'est Player — it's Randy Moss, who broke Jerry Rice's single-season mark for TD catches with 23. Although Moss took 16 games to break a mark that Rice set in 12 games, the record validates how much he's regained his form after the lost seasons by the East Bay. The Patriots set the league record for points in a season, which is striking too, because Moss was on the previous team that held the mark, the 1998 Vikings.

• The Ronnie Lott Award: For bone-crushing impact as Defensive MVP, it's Indy's fireplug of a safety, Bob Sanders. He's like all over the place, packing heat.

• The Joe Montana Award: For MVP, it's Tom Brady. Like Super Joe, Brady's boyhood idol, the Patriots quarterback has been defined by his play in Super Bowls. But Montana won some regular-season MVPs, too (two). Just never threw for 50 TDs in a season.

• The Deion Sanders Prime Time Award: Devin Hester. As a rookie last year, the Bears' return ace set an NFL record by returning five kicks for touchdowns. Guess that wasn't good enough. Hester set a record this season by scoring TDs on six kickoff or punt returns.

• The Deacon Jones Award: For laying down the law in the NFL in a swift and decisive manner, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gets a nod. Jones, once noted for headslaps as a member of the "Fearsome Foursome" for the Rams, now serves as "enforcer" when Hall of Famers gather for an annual luncheon to greet the incoming class.

• The George Young Award: For executive of the year, New England's Scott Pioli gets some love. The Patriots traded for Welker, an ultimate blitz-killer who also throws a mean crackback block on running plays. And they traded a fourth-round pick for Moss, who kind of proved his naysayers wrong.

FOOTBALL 101: If the folks at Nielsen ever sent me one of those books to chart my TV viewing habits, they would discover that ESPN's State Farm NFL Matchup is one of my favorite shows — even in the middle of the night or early in the morning (thanks, TiVo).

A football purist just can't get enough of those film breakdowns. Which is why it was pretty cool to head to Merril Hoge's house in Northern Kentucky right after Christmas. From his basement office, cluttered with videotapes and featuring a huge monitor and the coaching clicker remote control, Hoge gave me my own personalized, two-hour NFL Matchup to coach me up on the 3-4 defense for an assignment.

From all of the football talk with Hoge, these are two topics that have stuck with me as the playoffs approach:

• 1. First-year Jaguars offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter probably hasn't been given enough credit. Sure, Jack Del Rio made the big decision of dumping Byron Leftwich and inserting David Garrard as the starting quarterback. But Koetter had the hands-on task of implementing the plan after the switch came just eight days before the season opener.

"All of the offseason OTAs and minicamps, wasted," said Hoge. "Throughout the season, they've had to go through the OTAs, training camp and preseason — one week at a time. Now you're seeing the result."

Hoge says that Koetter — previously the wide-open styled head coach at Arizona State and Boise State — had originally built the offense around Leftwich. The passing game was replete with five- and seven-step drops to help with Leftwich's elongated throwing motion.

"Then they cut him, and David Garrard's not that kind of guy," Hoge added. "So you've got a week (to adjust). It's been interesting."

Jacksonville's offense sputtered at the start, scoring just 22 points in their first two games. But the Jags put up 389 points in the final 14 games — an average of 27.7 as Garrard blossomed into a star. The 411 points were a franchise record, as were the 50 TDs and the seven games in which they gained 400 yards. They finished the regular season with the seventh-ranked offense.

We've heard a lot about the job Jason Garrett has done in his first year as the Cowboys' coordinator, and deservedly so. But Koetter's work has been in the same league.

• 2. The Patriots will probably spend some quality time during their bye week trying to shore up their run defense. A team that goes 16-0 has few holes, but Patriots' run defense — masked by the blowouts and prolific offense — has uncharacteristically been a week link.

New England's 4.4-yards allowed rushing average is the worst of any team in the playoffs, tied for fifth-worst in the NFL. Factors undoubtedly include the knee injury that kept five-time Pro Bowl lineman Richard Seymour sidelined for seven games, and perhaps the age of linebackers Junior Seau and Tedy Bruschi and safety Rodney Harrison (who also missed four games due to a suspension). And Rosevelt Colvin's season ended in late November with a foot injury.

Hoge says that although New England is the best of the league's 3-4 defenses, when it comes to morphing into different fronts and looks, he's noticed something when the Patriots use the 4-3 extensively.

"They don't play the run well out of the 4-3," Hoge says. "They used a 4-3 almost the entire first half at Baltimore and just got torched … and never played it again that night."

The Patriots also opened the game with a 4-3 at Indianapolis on Nov. 4, before using more 3-4 schemes as the game evolved. Of course, Harrison in the box — no matter the scheme — is quite the supporting X-factor against the run.

HIRING SEASON: Often overlooked during the annual changeover in head coaching jobs — with fewer moves than normal this offseason in the NFL — is the impact on assistant coaches. Just ask Hue Jackson.

On Sunday, Jackson was calling the plays as the Atlanta Falcons' offensive coordinator, pushing the buttons that helped quarterback Chris Redman win NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors and the team post its biggest point production in nine years (44).

Now he's in limbo, as the Falcons search for a new coach.

As much as he'd like to be, Jackson isn't on the team's list to fill the job vacated with Bobby Petrino's abrupt departure to the University of Arkansas.

"The frustrating part is that you'd like to have that opportunity, too," Jackson says of the Falcons' head coaching jobs. The team is due to interview Cowboys assistants Jason Garrett and Tony Sparano and Indianapolis Colts quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell. "I came with Bobby, but I'm sure not Bobby.

"Sometimes, you wonder, what do you have to do to get noticed?"

Jackson, still under contract with the Falcons — whose new coach will likely choose his own staff — previously worked as the Bengals receivers coach and the Redskins offensive coordinator. The Washington role was similar to his Falcons job in that he didn't call the plays (except in a few cases) while working under Steve Spurrier.

When Petrino bolted, though, Jackson called the plays — and produced. The Falcons scored a season-high 27 points at Arizona, then topped that last weekend.

"I wish I had five more games to call the plays," Jackson said.

What worked?

"I just tried to focus on the things the players did the best," he said. "And I'd hope I provided some leadership, that brought out some things so that they wanted to play."

At least Jackson, 42, can add that to a résumé that includes coordinator jobs at Southern California and Cal, and other assistant posts at Arizona State, Cal State-Fullerton and Pacific. He also spent a season coaching in the World League with the London Monarchs.

Plotting the next move is difficult. Jackson is not currently on the list of candidates for the head coaching jobs with Baltimore or Miami, and it is hardly a slam-dunk that he will land a coordinator's job.

He's also a married father with two daughters, 13 and 10. The family is braced to uproot and move again.

"I think they kind of like it," Jackson said. "But they're at that age now where they probably don't want to keep moving around. I'd like to really get settled."

Jackson still hasn't talked to Petrino since his former boss assembled his staff for a meeting, and in 40 seconds, Jackson estimates, told them he was resigning.

"He said he'd be in touch with us, and talk to us individually," Jackson said. "He never said he was taking another job; he just said that he was resigning. Then a few hours later, he was in Arkansas doing Hog calls. I haven't heard from him since."

SAY WHAT? "Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Maybe hit a couple of them — first half, second half. Get a different flavor for it." —Patriots coach Bill Belichick, asked if he'd go to a sports bar to watch Saturday night's Jaguars-Steelers wild-card playoff game, given chances of playing the winner in New England's playoff opener the following weekend.

TWO-MINUTE DRILL: Just five teams have won Super Bowls after playing in the wild-card round — including the past two champions, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The Colts and Steelers came back a year after being upset in years they held the league's best regular-season record. The Chargers hope to continue that trend, after a playoff meltdown against the Patriots last January followed a 14-2 regular season. "I think we all learned a lot from last year," said Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman. "We learned how the level of play and intensity rises in the playoffs. You always know how it goes up a notch from preseason to the regular season. Well, it's really cranking now. Guys are out there diving, scratching, clawing. Being a young team last year, maybe that didn't sink in. We didn't realize how much you really need to make fewer mistakes." … So much for the Bobby Knight connection. Some speculated that links to the legendary basketball coach might have bought time for Cam Cameron to make an impression on new Dolphins "owner's designee" Bill Parcells, a close chum of Knight's. Cameron played for Knight. No matter. Cameron was fired Thursday, his philosophy deemed incompatible with that of Parcells and new GM Jeff Ireland, fresh from the Cowboys staff. Ireland, who was Dallas' scouting director, will have final authority over all of Miami's personnel decisions — and not the Tuna. That wasn't the case in Dallas, where owner Jerry Jones doubles as GM. Expect the Dolphins to be bigger, which means undersized defensive stalwarts Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas looked pretty incompatible, too. … If it seems like déjà vu for the Redskins, that's because the last time they were in the playoffs, after the 2005 season, they won six in a row and found themselves in a playoff game at Seattle. This time, they won four straight to land a wild-card berth and the next stop is Seattle. "This team also, like that team, has over come a lot of injuries," said 'Skins coach Joe Gibbs. "The thing that is really different is losing Sean (Taylor). That was a totally different deal for us." … More déjà vu: The Giants, with a seven-game road winning streak, meet up with Jeff Garcia in the playoffs again. Last year, while filling in for Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia, Garcia helped eliminate the G-men. Now he's a Buc, trying to repeat the feat. "That's the past," says a diplomatic Garcia. "This is a new year." … And a final déjà vu: Fred Taylor and the Jags are headed back to Pittsburgh. In Week 15, mid-December, Taylor slashed through the Steelers' No. 1-ranked defense for 147 yards on the sloppy Heinz Field turf. He was one of two 100-yard rushers (with the Jets' Thomas Jones) against Pittsburgh all season … Scratch Josh McDaniels from your head coach pool. The Patriots' O-coordinator has declined the opportunity to interview with the Ravens and Falcons. Says he wants to concentrate on his current job.

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Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, right, with team owner Daniel Snyder addressing the death of safety Sean Taylor on Nov. 27, guided his team to a playoff berth after the loss of the Pro Bowler.

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